Kitchen and Bathroom.

Next to the hallway is the kitchen and bathroom- the first bit of the house that we decided needed to be worked on, and what led to the whole remodeling project.

There used to be a separate toilet and bathroom on the left as you got to the top of the main staircase;

On the other side of the bathroom is the kitchen. Again, following the beautiful colour scheme that was established in the hallway... in that it was the same "staring at the sun for too long" shade of yellow.

To make the most of the space we had, we took down the wall that separated the bathroom and toilet, turning them into one bigger bathroom. Then we decided that if we were going to start moving walls around, it would be worthwhile to free up some more space for the kitchen.

Once things got stripped down, the effect was fairly shocking (in a "what have we done?" kind of way.) This whole area looked quite different;

Moving the bathroom wall across means a lot more useful space in the kitchen- bringing the work surfaces away from the window, and enough room for units on both sides with space to move around inbetween.

Kitchen units are in the process of being put together (following the obligatory confusion over Ikea's collection of boxes, hinges, panels and parts.) Here, you can see a drawer cupboard where the sink should be, and the oven cabinet where the dishwasher will go. (Looking forward to having a dishwasher again...)

It's nice that there's enough room to bring the boiler through from the back bedroom too- should free up some useful space back there...

You can also see the tall cabinet for the fridge freezer, and in front is the sink cabinet- where the oven cabinet should be. (Obvious when you spend half an hour or so looking at diagrams and plans and measuring up unts...)

Although taking the wall that separated the toilet from the bathroom out meant that we had a bit more space to play with in the bigger bathroom (and that we had to sacrifice the beautiful bathroom tiles...) , we had to squeeze things in a bit to make things fit into the space that we had given ourselves;

But we decided to make the most of the space we had- one thing was to make sure that there's enough room to move around inside the bathroom, there's now a sliding door.
Here's Fin, modeling where the door will go.

We also put in a curvy shaped bath to make the most of the space left by the angle of the door, and with the shower end away from the window. (Looking forward to having a bath and space in the shower even more than I'm looking forward to having a dishwasher!)

I love the lack of taps sticking out on the bath- so there's nothing to stick in your back, whichever end you sit at.

What used to be the toilet window now looked like something that was going to get in the way, rather than let air and light (and cats) into the room. So it's probably now going to be the location of some sort of cabinet.

At least there shouldn't be any uninvited visitors coming in. (Not that it would have bothered me too much, but I'm not sure whether a cat would have been able to get out again.)

It's nice that things are now getting to a stage where the "after" pictures look better than the "before" ones. Not too far to go now- the end is in sight...